


there was a time i could move

by assassin_trifecta



Series: Harrisco Trash 2kForever [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Harrisco Fest 2017, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, in which Cisco takes care of Harry because soft Harry needs more love, soft sweaters, universal headcanon that Harry was in the War of the Americas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 13:13:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11875236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assassin_trifecta/pseuds/assassin_trifecta
Summary: There was a time I could breathe...Harry isn't okay. He needs help, he needs love, and luckily Cisco's softer than the sweaters he wears to keep himself together.





	there was a time i could move

**Author's Note:**

> title from The Avett Brothers "Paranoia In B-Flat Major"

“Are you okay?”

                Harry looks up when he heard Cisco enter the storage room he’s converted to his home, and tries not to groan when heh sees that the younger man has already noticed him. This is the last way that he wants Cisco to see him, sitting with his knees pulled to his chest, backed against the corner wall. He hasn’t seen himself but he’s sure he must look like hell. His eyes are surely red and swollen, his hands still shaking from his last fit. It’s well past midnight. He should be in bed. Cisco should be at home.

                He’s wearing pajama pants and one of his softest sweaters. Flannel and cashmere still rubbing irritatingly against oversensitive skin, but less awful than had he fallen asleep at his desk in his thermal and jeans again.

                He pulled his sleeves further down, hiding shaking fingers from Cisco’s eyes. The fabric was soft, his favorite when he was irritated like this, skin oversensitive and harsh.

                Harry didn’t like anyone seeing him like this, while he was so uncomfortable in his mind and in his body. Especially when the person was Cisco, whose opinion of him he still valued. Cisco, whose relationship with him was still fragile and new enough that he didn’t want the other to see any of this, any of the… broken.

                “Yes.” He grated out in response when he realized he had already taken too long to answer. “I’m fine.”

                Which Cisco clearly didn’t believe, because he sat down right beside him when Harry clearly hadn’t asked him to.

                “That’s bullshit.” The engineer remarked, nearly glaring at his partner. “I know you well enough by now to know when you’re full of it, Harry, now tell me,” he bumped Harry’s shoulder, regretting it immediately when the older man flinched away from him. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, his gaze less harsh. “What’s wrong, Harry?”

                Harry didn’t want to speak. Didn’t want to let Cisco into the nightmare and the self-hate and the pain that comes with it. He misses his daughter, and the stress of being back in the action of fighting metahumans and occasionally being accosted by Zoom has brought back the trauma of the war.

                He had been young but smart, drafted and promoted and finding himself an officer in a POW camp, unable to go home. He had taken medicine for it when he was younger, still had a prescription for the flare ups and the anxiety and the depression. But that was on Earth Two. Where he couldn’t go home.

                It was a pathetic display that he didn’t want Cisco to witness, to be a part of so early in their relationship.

                But even if he didn’t speak, that was answer enough for Cisco.

                “Come on, you,” he spoke too gently, spoke as though he was someone that had seen too much trauma too young. Harry supposed that was true. “Come back to bed.”

                They worked together, for the most part, Cisco coaxing Harry up off the floor so that he could shuffle them back to the cot. Harry wanted to fight him, to tell him to go away and leave him to his own demons. But he stayed silent, the energy draining from him with every step towards the cot. He collapsed there, writing uncomfortable at the scratch sheets but shifted into place by warm hands that were inexplicably careful against his skin. He had never said a word to Cisco, but the younger man seemed to know. _Be gentle,_ the atmosphere seemed to say. _Harry needs to be soft right now._

                Which was why, very delicately, Cisco shifted Harry down into his lap, gentle fingers in short hair. Soothing, soft. In a way that they had never been together, yet. Cisco cradled him carefully, fingers brushing down from Harry’s hair to between his shoulders, rubbing with gentle care to not overstimulate his partner further.

                “Don’t worry, Harry,” he whispered, his voice soft for his benefit. But Harry barely registered it, drifting away in Cisco’s arms, not quite sleeping but almost there, at the comfort of his soft touch.

                “I’ve got you.”


End file.
